---
title: "Coronation Street"
year: 1960
kind: "series"
canonical: "https://film.one/tv/coronation-street"
fi1m_id: "coronation-street"
imdb_id: "tt0053494"
tmdb_id: 291
wikidata_id: "Q945030"
fi1m_score: 74
critics_reviews: 2
published: "2026-10-07T11:32:20.526016+00:00"
updated: "2026-10-07T11:32:28.654765+00:00"
region: "PE"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Coronation Street (1960)

Created by Tony Warren · 22m · Soap

## Identity

Coronation Street

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/tv/coronation-street
- **Type:** Series
- **Fi1m ID:** coronation-street
- **IMDb ID:** tt0053494
- **TMDB ID:** 291
- **Wikidata ID:** Q945030
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053494/, https://www.themoviedb.org/tv/291, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q945030

**Fi1m score: 74** · Critics: 2 of 6 reviews so far

*In a sentence:* Sixty-five years, one pub, and still nobody has thought of moving somewhere quieter

> Tony Warren’s street of Salford terraces has run since December 1960 and, on its good nights, is still funny, humane and sharply observed. On its bad nights it mistakes catastrophe for drama. The good nights are still worth finding.

## Synopsis

Coronation Street is a short terrace of brick two-up two-downs in Weatherfield, a made-up district of Salford, with the Rovers Return pub at one end. In the early years Annie Walker (Doris Speed) runs the Rovers and keeps her customers at a careful distance from herself. Ken Barlow (William Roache) is a clever young man home from university who wants a life larger than his parents’ and is ashamed of how much he wants it. Later generations fill the houses: Steve McDonald (Simon Gregson), whose plans never survive contact with other people; Leanne Battersby (Jane Danson); Tyrone Dobbs (Alan Halsall). Marriages begin and fail, shops open and close, the pub stays open, and every episode turns on who said what at the bar and who was listening.

## Review

Tony Warren’s *Coronation Street* was first broadcast in December 1960. It is a terrace of brick two-up two-downs in Weatherfield, a made-up corner of Salford, with a pub called the Rovers Return at one end, and for more than sixty years it has asked one question: what did she say to him, and who heard. On a good night it is as funny and humane as anything on British television. On a bad night it is a disaster film that has wandered on to the wrong set. We recommend the good nights, and there are still plenty of them.

The first run was seven episodes. By the 2010s the programme was turning out more than 250 a year, each 22 minutes long, which is a schedule that would kill a feature film in a week. It has survived because the form is modest. An episode does not have a plot so much as a dozen conversations, most of them in the Rovers or somebody’s back kitchen, and the drama is in who is lying and who has noticed.

Doris Speed played Annie Walker, the landlady of the Rovers, through the early decades, with her chin held a precise inch higher than her customers’. William Roache was in the first episode as Ken Barlow, the clever boy home from university and ashamed of his father’s table manners, and he is still there. Ken has now been embarrassed by every generation on the street in turn, and Roache plays each fresh embarrassment as if it were the first.

The writers’ credits over the years include Jimmy McGovern, Sally Wainwright, Jonathan Harvey, Peter Whalley, John Stevenson and Daran Little, and what the best of them share is an ear for how people in a pub talk: round the subject, in insults, with the real matter saved for the door. The jokes are not written as jokes. A woman at the bar says something about a neighbour’s new coat, and three lines later the neighbour’s marriage is on the table. We laughed out loud more than once at Simon Gregson’s Steve McDonald, a man who begins every explanation already defeated, and it was the particular laugh of recognition. We have stood where he stands. Alan Halsall’s Tyrone Dobbs and Jane Danson’s Leanne Battersby have the same gift for being ordinary without being dull.

What goes wrong is the big week. The anniversary episodes, staged live in 2010 and marked again in 2020, were liked by most critics, and we see why: the live scenes ran without a stumble and the cast rose to the occasion. But both weeks were built around catastrophe, the first turning the programme towards disaster plotting and the second resting its climax on the Geoff and Yasmeen story, and a show that was made out of a coat and a remark became one about sirens. We were cross, and the crossness was specific. The people we had come to watch were being moved out of the way for an event.

The direction is plain by design, and the credits are a surprise. Mike Newell, Roland Joffé, Charles Sturridge and Julian Jarrold have all directed episodes, and none of them left fingerprints, which is to their credit. The camera’s one job is to get to the face that has just heard the thing, and the good directors get there a beat early so we watch the news land. When an episode cuts to a car on a wet road and the music swells, something expensive is about to happen and the writing has clocked off for the night.

Against its own standard, the quiet comic decades, the modern programme is louder and faster, and at more than 250 episodes a year it would be a miracle if it were not. Against everything else on the schedule it is still the place where ordinary working lives get half an hour of attention a night, and nobody else has kept that up since 1960. Watch an ordinary week rather than an anniversary. The programme is at its best when nothing is at stake except who gets to tell the story first.

*Fi1m score 74, published 7 October 2026.*

## Straight answers

**Is Coronation Street worth watching?**

*Coronation Street* is worth watching for anyone who likes small, funny, closely observed drama about ordinary lives, and we scored it 74. On a good night it is as humane as anything on British television; on a bad night it is a disaster film on the wrong set. Watch an ordinary week rather than an anniversary.

**How long is Coronation Street, and what is it rated?**

*Coronation Street* has episodes of about 22m. It is a soap series.

**Where can I watch Coronation Street in Peru?**

*Coronation Street* is not on any streaming or rental service in Peru at the moment. It is available in 3 other countries; change your country at the top of the page to see where. Availability is checked daily.

**How violent or frightening is Coronation Street, and is it suitable for children?**

*Coronation Street* carries a UK 12 certificate, and most episodes are a dozen conversations in a pub or a back kitchen rather than anything violent or frightening. The exceptions are the big anniversary weeks, which turn on catastrophe and sirens. It suits older children and teenagers watching with the family; younger ones will mostly be bored rather than scared.

**How does Coronation Street compare to The Royle Family?**

*Coronation Street* and [*The Royle Family*](https://film.one/tv/the-royle-family) share a Manchester ear for people talking round the subject, but the sitcom is the tighter and more consistent of the two: twenty half-hours without a wasted one. The soap runs to hundreds of episodes a year and its quality varies with the week. Choose the Royles for a perfect short run, the Street for a habit.

### Reviews we read (2)

- **Radio Times**, Johnathon Hughes (80/100, inferred): The headline presents the anniversary episode as an ambitious mix of high drama and warm wit. The episode’s focus on Geoff and Yasmeen is singled out as central to its climax. [Read](https://www.radiotimes.com/tv/soaps/coronation-street/coronation-street-60th-anniversary-review-comment/)
- **The Guardian**, Mark Lawson (B): Lawson regards the anniversary live episode as a fitting, energetic high point in a strong week for the soap. He praises how smoothly the live scenes played, while noting the shift from social comedy toward disaster-movie plotting. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2010/dec/10/coronation-street-live-episode-review)

## Details

- **Created by:** Tony Warren
- **Creator:** Tony Warren
- **Director:** Laurence Moody, Alan Grint, Neil Alderton, Colin Cant, Richard Holthouse, Brett Fallis, Derek Bennett, Richard Signy, John Anderson, Baz Taylor, Leon Lopez, Gill Wilkinson, Audrey Cooke, Ken Grieve, Tim Royle, Abe Juckes, Desmond McCarthy, Les Chatfield, Graeme Harper, Sarah Harding, Bob Hird, Roland Joffé, Mike Newell, Clive Arnold, Julian Jarrold, Michael Kerrigan, Pedr James, Michael Darlow, Alan Wareing, Becky Wild, Sean Healy, Oliver Horsbrugh, Charles Sturridge, Ian Barber, George Spenton-Foster, Tim Dowd, Nickie Lister, Jordan Hogg, Paulette Randall, Gerald Blake, Tristan de Vere Cole, John Black, Sasha Ransome, Derrick Goodwin, Michael Simpson, John Gorrie, Kevin Boyle, Michael Cox, David Kester, Richard Lynn, Judith Dine, Claude Whatham, Afia Nkrumah, Matt Hilton
- **Writer:** Chris Fewtrell, Jayne Hollinson, Debbie Oates, Jan McVerry, Stephen Russell, Peter Whalley, Phil Collinson, Daran Little, John Stevenson, John Fay, Sally Wainwright, Damon Alexis-Rochefort, Joe Turner, Ella Greenhill, Owen Lloyd-Fox, Riz Moritz, Julie Jones, Jimmy McGovern, Jonathan Harvey, Ellen Taylor, Mark Wadlow, Sam Holdsworth, John Kerr, Ian Kershaw, Mark Burt
- **Producer:** Carolyn Reynolds, Kieran Roberts, Jane Macnaught
- **Cast:** Helen Flanagan as Rosie Webster; Ryan Thomas as Jason Grimshaw; Simon Gregson as Steve McDonald; William Roache as Ken Barlow; Eileen Davies as Flora McArdle; Alan Halsall as Tyrone Dobbs; Jane Danson as Leanne Battersby / Leanne Tilsley; Sonia Ibrahim as Mel Maguire
- **Runtime:** 22m
- **Release (Peru):** 9 December 1960
- **Genres:** Soap

## Where to watch in Peru

Not streaming, renting or buying in Peru at the last check.

Also available in: CA, GB, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## Awards

- BAFTA Television Awards 2016: British Academy Television Awards (nominated)

## If you liked this

- *The Royle Family* (1998), Fi1m 85: A Manchester family on a sofa, saying nothing much and meaning all of it — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/tv/the-royle-family.md)
- *Boys from the Blackstuff* (1982): Liverpool out of work, written with the same ear and far more anger
- *A Taste of Honey* (1961): Salford the same year the street opened, grainy, funny and sad
- *Happy Valley* (2014): Sally Wainwright, once of the street, with a Yorkshire sergeant and real jeopardy
- *Brookside* (1982): The Liverpool close that took the form and gave it politics

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/tv/coronation-street